


Illusion

by remanth



Series: Thoughts and Reflections [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Archangel - Freeform, Character Death, Gen, Mystery Spot, Sabriel - Freeform, angel - Freeform, holy oil, illusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-04 15:05:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remanth/pseuds/remanth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel takes the last few seconds of his life to reflect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illusion

I’ve lived most of my life surrounded by illusion. Hell, sometimes _I was_ the illusion. When I ran from my family, I created the biggest illusion of all. I pretended I wasn’t who I was, pretended to be a god to escape the pain and fighting that was and was to come. And if that wasn’t a sign that Daddy Dearest didn’t care anymore, I don’t know what was.

I tried to stay... pure, I suppose is the best word. At first, of course. I only tricked and tormented those who truly deserved it. I stayed away from the debauchery and destruction the other gods seemed to delight in. My sacrifices were always bloodless, always a small prank played by my worshippers on others. But I took that first step, accepted the first taste of blood, and I was lost from there.

Again, my father didn’t intervene and I delved completely into the world I’d chosen. I began asking for blood as sacrifice, the smell and taste more intoxicating than the most potent wine. My pranks became deadlier, darker, and I no longer cared as much exactly what my victim had done. As long as they had done _something_ , I preyed upon them. And when people found what was left of my victim, or even just their absence for I didn’t always leave anything behind, they knew it was me and feared. I suppose my actions had a small benefit: the people tried to stay on my good side and therefore didn’t act as nasty as they might have.

Though there was always one thing I stayed away from, one act that I stopped myself from performing. I don’t know why. Maybe I wanted to hold onto one last piece of the archangel that I was. After all, as pure energy and light, physical pleasures seemed pointless. I’d danced among the stars and held the secrets of the universe. What could anything physical compare to that? And then I met the goddess and she changed my mind.

She was a goddess of time and change and, in the guise she had taken when I knew her, of death. She taught me many things about the persona I had chosen, about the excesses and pleasures a pagan god can indulge in. When she chose to share my bed, she taught me why the physical can be just as wondrous and addicting as the celestial I’d enjoyed. I learned more in the short time we were together than I had learned in the entire time I’d watched humanity as an archangel and as a pagan god.

But she was fickle and bored easily. Soon, she was moving on to another conquest. She told me I was sweet and she didn’t like sweet. I could tell she was fond of me, though, every time we met after that. There’s was always a little smile hovering on her lips. I went my own way after that, mostly. Gods as a whole are really solitary creatures so it wasn’t too hard. I went back to giving people their just desserts and kept moving. Though, I would keep myself company by summoning illusions. Remember what I said about being surrounded by illusion? I did it to myself because people were... hard. I didn’t want to deal with any of them, coward that I have to admit that I am. I tried to lose myself in the pranks and blood and sex and forget what I knew was coming.

And it worked. It worked for centuries as I wound my way through Europe then over to Asia and then some whim sent me to North America in about 1492. Yeah, I followed the sailor to the New World. So what? _I_ already knew it was there. I guess some part of me wanted me near when the final battle was to take place. Because where else was it going to be? You guess it: North America. Kansas, specifically, though Kansas didn’t exist just yet. Just a meadow in the middle of a prairie that people tended to avoid as a sacred place. It was safer for them, even if sacred wasn’t quite the word for what raged, contained, in that place.

Centuries passed and I was whiling away some time in Las Vegas, enjoying the lights and the shows while doling out punishment here and there. Then I felt it. It was a Monday, a day that I especially enjoyed as it was my day. I heard a baby’s birth squall and felt a tiny soul reach for mine. In my shock, I didn’t bother to shield myself from its grasp and what felt like small fingers wrapped around a section of my grace and held firm. As it settled down in contentment, I felt a rush of fondness flow through me for the soul that had reached out. I wanted to know who it was, who could grasp the essence of an archangel and survive.

That led me to Lawrence, Kansas and the crib of a newborn baby. The proud parents and an older brother hovered over it, watching the little one sleep. I could see the touch of my oldest brother on the older child and was surprised to see he had been born on a Thursday. Decidedly _not_ the day of my oldest brother. I looked closer, delaying the moment I looked into the crib, and saw the barest traces of another angel marking the older brother. A part of his soul was stretched out, exchanged with a very young angel. The touch was so tenuous I couldn’t tell who it was, but I knew it was going to frustrate my eldest brother. I grinned at the thought; it would be about time someone took him down a peg.

But I couldn’t stall anymore. The baby in the crib was calling to me, his bright eyes locked on me hovering over his parents’ shoulders. I looked down at him, the grin on my face changing from smug to fond and loving. He was beautiful, his soul shining brightly and cleanly. But I could see the touch of my other brother, the one who had been cast down. This boy was to be his vessel as the older one was to be the vessel of my eldest brother. But he had been born on my day, I had felt and heard him, he had reached out to me. He was _mine_.

I rested my fingertips on his forehead, letting the urge to protect and love flow through the touch and into him. I wanted desperately to change the fate I knew was coming for him and his brother and promised silently to do everything I could. A laugh gurgled out of him and I laughed with him, the sound disguised as the wind and birdsong. With a final, fond glance, I left that room and went back to Vegas. It was probably the best place for me to be, in order for the kid to grow up on his own path.

Now, I couldn’t lose myself in the same things I had done before. Two things tied me to the archangel I had tried to leave behind: the knowledge of what was to come and the prayers of a little boy slowing growing into a man. I stayed away, not wanting to draw attention to him. My presence was difficult to hide at times, as a god or an archangel, and it grew tiring. The only time I was drawn back was six months after he was born, the change in his soul and the sheer terror one dark night pulling me like a lodestone to a magnet. I watched as the baby was carried out of a burning house in his brother’s arms, the taint of a demon crawling over the brightness that was his soul. But there was nothing I could do; this had been foretold and I could only pray to my father that the boy could hold out against what the demon had done to him.

But I suppose that’s enough time spent reflecting on the distant past. It was nice to see him again in Ohio, when I was dealing out punishments on some college campus. Though I had to play fast and loose to get away. Good thing I’m so good at illusions, huh? And I fully admit I made a mistake at the Mystery Spot. It had the opposite effect I intended and I could feel him start to hate me. It was an interesting dichotomy, feeling the rage and hearing the prayers he would whisper in the night.

I was proud and surprised when they trapped me in a ring of holy oil. I hadn’t expected them to figure out I was really an angel but I suppose once you have issues in your family, you can recognize it in someone else. And there was a part of me that wanted the charade to be over, to let the kid know who I was.

Gabriel.

It _hurt_ saying the name out loud again after the millenia I’d spent burying it. I met hazel eyes, sorrow in my own meeting shock and disappointment. Now he knew I was the being he’d been praying to, the being he’d been hoping could intervene somehow. I explained what I knew, answering their questions but speaking mainly to him. After that confrontation, I was completely thrown when I heard his prayers again. Maybe he’d forgiven me the mistakes I’d made. And I could tell he felt something, knew I wasn’t a threat to him.

He’s the only one who could have pulled me out of my cowardice. He’s the primary reason I face my brother tonight even though it will almost certainly mean my death. I tried to push my sincerest apologies through the tenuous bond we still shared, the bond that I doubt anything could sever. It seemed to work; I could see forgiveness in his eyes as I stood between my brother and him, letting him, his brother, and the goddess escape.

I suppose that I should admit it now, facing down my own death. Even though I had a plan, one that had worked on gods, monsters, and hunters trying to kill me before, this was my older brother. He was the one who had taught me to fight, to fly, and to play harmless pranks on our family. He still shone as brightly as the name given to him though red and black crawled over the pure white of his grace. But my last illusions failed.

I can’t believe all this has flashed through my mind in the few seconds since my own blade was driven through my chest. My brother cradles me as my legs go weak, pain burning through me. The tip has just barely penetrated the center of my grace but not enough to kill me, not yet. As I stare into my brother’s eyes, crocodile’s tears glimmering in his as real ones blurred mine, I send out my last thought to the kid who never stopped praying to me.

I love you.


End file.
